How chimchim237 started their logo design journey

Summary

Logo design needed for a new website focusing on where to go, what to do, where to hang out, and what's going on in the downtown area. As this city (and its downtown area, especially) is well-known for its collection of art deco buildings, it would be great to have a logo that mixes modern and art deco design.

However, I think it's more important to fit in the mission statement of the organization, which i give in the detailed description, so please read that.

i guess my primary requirement would be fitting in the mission statement, 2nd would be good typography / clean and clear style that can be scaled to whatever the logo would be used for (business cards, website, banner ads, etc.) and last if a mod / deco theme can be built in all the better.

Company name

DowntownLive!

What inspires you and how do you envision the design for your business?

Logo design needed for a new website focusing on where to go, what to do, where to hang out, and what's going on in the downtown area. As this city (and its downtown area, especially) is well-known for its collection of art deco buildings, it would be great to have a logo that mixes modern and art deco design.

The mission of the organization that is creating this project contains this phrase:

“...a dynamic, urban core, complemented by a constellation of livable, thriving communities...”
Which is another inspiration that I want to use for the logo. There's an idea floating around the organization that if this website is successful for downtown, we want to expand the same idea in to other areas of the city.

So a logo that conveys again, a vibrant, thriving downtown and then the ripple effect spreading to the rest of the city would be awesome.

What I have in my mind is an exclamation mark where the point ( ! ) of the exclamation mark itself represents the core of the city. then i would have waves, or ripples eminating from the dot, to represent the idea that a thriving downtown creates a vibrant, thriving, dyanmic city. please see the bullet points on, "what i want" and "what i don't want", as i am pretty specific about this.

Wants

- I'd like to see emphasis on the exclamation point in the design.
- What I have in my head is that the dot of the exclamation point as the, "urban core" and then stars, dots, ripples or waves coming off of it to represent the communities around the downtown area.
- Needs to have some creative letter / word / typography art for the name DowntownLive!
- The words themselves can be side-by-side or one on top of the other.
- Again, art deco theme is desired, but not completely necessary. I'd like to see other creative mixes of modern + deco

Don't want

- don't want to use a caricature or illustration /drawing of the downtown skyline. that's an overused cliche
- no web 2.0 like designs. i'm sick of that style